2015

Looking back at the year of 2015, it has been a wonderful and eventful ride, with more than a hundred events – concerts, festivals, broadcasts, conferences, exhibitions and special commemoration projects –
taking place on four continents and in eleven countries during the centenary year. Most of these activities took place in the Czech Republic and in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom,
Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Canada, Italy, Argentina, the Netherlands and Sweden. Those most significant should be mentioned here in a summary: the release of Kapralova's very own stamp by Czech Post
in commemoration of her 100th birth anniversary in January; a two-day celebration of Kapralova's orchestral music by the Brno Philharmonic in February, recorded by Czech Radio to be released on record; a series of Kapralova dedicated broadcasts
throughout the first half of the year, produced by Czech Radio; two new Kapralova publications – a very first French language monograph, published in the spring, and the first volume of the composer's collected
correspondence, published in the fall; a grand, seven-day Kapralova Festival presented by the University of Michigan in September; a seminal five-hour radio documentary on Kapralova produced by the BBC Radio 3
in October; and this more or less chronological account was rounded in November by a two-day international symposium in Switzerland solely dedicated to our composer.

Performances

The most anticipated event of the year was the seven-day Kapralova Festival which was made possible thanks to Timothy Cheek and the faculty and students at the University of Michigan School of Music.
The festival was the largest Kapralova event ever produced: all of Kapralova's music, save for a few orchestral works, was programmed at
this event which also featured six world premieres: the composer's Sad Evening for Tenor/Soprano and Orchestra, stand-alone songs In the Bohemian Land and Song of the
Workers of the Lord,
two early songs from 1930-1932, and the miniatures Two Bouquets of Flowers for piano and Fanfare for My Dad's 50th Birthday for 2 horns, 2 trumpets and timpani.
Other important concerts took place in Brno in February: these were made possible by the Brno Philharmonic which presented, to a capacity audience, five major orchestral works by Kapralova:
Piano Concerto, Military Sinfonietta, Suita Rustica, Partita and Concertino. (The live performance was recorded by Czech Radio and will be released on CD by its label Radioservis in 2016.)
Kapralova’s music was also programmed at a record number of festivals in 2015. Besides the aforementioned Kapralova Festival in Ann Arbor (September), her music was performed
at the Specs On! International Feminist Art Music Festival in Berlin (April), Jagthuis Festival in Nederhorst den Berg, the Netherlands (May), SongFest in Los Angeles (June),
PICfest Boys & Young Men's Choral Festival in Eugene, Oregon (July), Viktor Ullmann Festival in Trieste, Italy (November), and
the Festival of Concert Melodrama in Prague (December).
Furthermore, Kapralova’s songs were heard at the Canadian Music Competition (Toronto) and the 13th Czech and Slovak Voice International Competition (with semi-finals in Montreal and semi-finals and finals at the University of Wisconsin).
The Kapralova Society participated in this biannual event by offering one of the competition prizes. The Kapralova Society Award is given to the best interpreter of a Kapralova art song.
In 2015, it was awarded to American baritone Nicholas Davis, a recent alumnus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Dance & Theatre.
Kapralova's music was also featured in two special projects: Poets of the City, a multidisciplinary project of ProArt Company, which celebrated the
life and work of Brno artists Ivan Blatny and Vitezslava Kapralova, and Czech Artists in France 1938-1945, a touring exhibition curated by the National Gallery and presented in partnership with
the Gallery of Visual Art in Cheb and the Moravian Gallery in Brno.

Broadcasts

There were 28 radio and 2 television broadcasts dedicated entirely or in part to Kapralova in 2015. The radio stations were located in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland,
United Kingdom and the United States, and included four national broadcasters (BBC, Czech Radio, Deutschlandfunk and Sveriges Radio). While the Czech Radio produced a series of programs dedicated to
Kapralova's music throughout the year, the most important, indeed seminal, radio documentary on Kapralova was produced by the Composer of the Week program of the BBC Radio 3, broadcast
October 12-16, 2015. Kapralova thus joined a distinguished roster of Czech composers who have been covered by this radio series over the years – and there have been just ten since 1943 when the program was
first aired: Zelenka, Dussek, Vanhal, Smetana, Dvorak, Fibich, Novak, Suk, Janacek, Martinu – and now also Kapralova.
The program was made possible mainly thanks to availability of published research on Kapralova and the many recordings of Kapralova's music that were released over the years with the Society's assistance.

Publications, Theses, Conference Papers

On the occasion of the centenary, Kapralova Society made available on its website two previously unpublished scores by Kapralova: her song Maticce for children's voices, set to words by Jan Neruda;
and the Fanfare for My Dad's 50th Birthday for two horns, two trumpets and timpani, discovered by Karla Hartl among Kapralova's correspondence. There were also two important books produced abroad
on the occasion of Kapralova's 100th birth anniversary: Nicolas Derny's monographVitezslava Kapralova - portrait musical et amoureux, published in Paris by Jardin d'Essai, and Karla Hartl's
Vitezslava Kapralova: Dopisy domu, published by Kapralova Society in Toronto. Derny's French language monograph is the second book on Kapralova in foreign language
(the first – in English – was published by Lexington Books in 2011) and represents a significant contribution to promoting the composer's life and music. Hartl's annotated
anthology of Kapralova's correspondence to her parents, published as a rare print destined for the research library market, makes available important material from several private
archives.
In the Czech Republic, a small anthology dedicated to Kapralova (editor Jarmila Mrackova) was published on the occasion of the composer's centenary by Spolek pratel hudby pri Filharmonii Brno. Mlada fronta published Svetovi Cesi,
a children’s book with 28 bios of important historical figures in Czech industry, science and art. One of the chapters was dedicated to Kapralova.
Kapralova was also the subject of a thesis in 2015. The thesis “Interpretacni pristup ke skladbam Bohuslava Martinu a Vitezslavy Kapralove” was written by Lucie Laubova
as part of meeting her Master’s degree requirements at the Prague Academy of Music.
Finally, the international symposium on Kapralova in Basel, Switzerland, organized by ForumMusikDiversitat (Forum for Diversity in Music) on November 27-28,
produced a set of papers from Nicolas Derny (Belgium), Christine Fischer (Switzerland), Karla Hartl (Canada), Daniel Lienhard (Switzerland), Judith Mabary (United States), Olga Machonova-Pavlu (Switzerland),
Alice Rajnohova (Czech Republic) and Thomas Svatos (United Arab Emirates).

Articles and Reviews

In 2015, the Society produced the thirteenth volume of its online journal of women in music - Kapralova Society Journal. The spring issue featured articles dedicated to Kapralova’s centenary and celebrating achievements of the Kapralova Society over the past seventeen years.
The fall issue included an article by Judith Mabary on the reception of Kapralova's music in the United States and Kapralova's miniature score Fanfare for My Dad's 50th Birthday. Other articles, dedicated to Kapralova, were written by John Allison for The Telegraph, by Sarah Baer and
Liane Curtis for wophil.org, by Vit Dvorak for OperaPlus, by Michael Haas for forbiddenmusic.org, by Karla Hartl for Harmonie, Czech Music Quarterly, Bohuslav Martinu Revue and VivaVoce, by Gabriela Kaegi for SRF, by Klara Kubickova for iDNES.cz, by Petr Lachmann for
Lidove noviny, by Jiri Macek for Hudebni rozhledy, by Jarmila Mrackova for Kralovopolske listy and by Bohuslav Smejkal for Olomoucky denik. Previews and reviews of performances
and broadcasts of Kapralova's music were published in Hospodarske noviny (Ivan Hartman), Brno mesto hudby and Zapisnik zmizeleho (Boris Klepal), Rozhlas.cz
(Jan Hlavac, Ivan Holas and Karel Kratochvil), Brnensky denik (Martin Flasar), Hessische Allgemeine (Werner von Fritsch), Musicologica.cz (Petra Svandova) and Harmonie
(Milos Zapletal). Karla Hartl’s anothology of Kapralova’s correspondence was reviewed in Opus musicum (Jaroslav Mihule), while Nicolas Derny's monograph on Kapralova received reviews in MusicaBohemica (Joseph Colomb), forumopera.com (Christophe Rizoud) and Opus musicum (Martin Flasar and Jolana Flasar).
Kapralova Festival was a topic of a preview written by Stephanie Shenouda for School of Music, Theatre & Dance News and of a review by Veroslav Nemec printed by Harmonie, whereas Kapralova symposium in Basel was promoted by
Walter Labhart in bz nordwestschweiz Basel and Daniel Lienhard in Schweizer Musikzeitung.

Women in Music

The thirteenth volume of the Kapralova Society Journal focused primarily on the centenary, publishing features, scores and analyses of Kapralova's music. In 2015, the journal received an important
endorsement from ProQuest that praised the journal for its well-presented, thoroughly-documented and interestingly written
material and highlighted its important role in promoting women in music over the years.

Thanks to worldwide volunteers, our databases of women composers and conductors and other online resources on women in music continue to attract visitors to our
website. While the databases are frequently bookmarked by online discussion groups, many college libraries also link to our journal and the Woman Composer Question Bibliography.